Saturday, March 2, 2013

Grieving the Death of a Child

The death of a child is particularly difficult because it’s
not supposed to happen. It is out of the
natural order of things. Young lives are
full of promise and possibilities and should never be cut short before they have
a chance to be realized. Every parent I
know would gladly exchange his or her own life for the lives of their children.
But sometimes that choice is not ours to make.

When Ken and I got married he had three grown sons and I had
eight year old twins. I don’t know what possessed him to take on a second
family just as his was leaving the nest, but I am forever thankful for the wit
and wisdom he provided in the raising of mine.
I have often said that God brought us together for a reason. It seemed an uncanny coincidence that he
should be grieving the loss of his wife of 22 years just as I was experiencing
a painful divorce.

I was concerned that his boys would not accept their father
entering a new relationship so soon after the death of their mother, but they
welcomed me in and made me feel comfortable.
I made no attempt to “mother” these adult children, but I tried to be
supportive and I loved playing “grandma” to their children.

Greg was the oldest of the boys at age 27. He was married and had a three-year old
daughter. They were struggling as a couple and having financial difficulty. Less
than two years separated Randy from his older brother, Greg and his younger brother,
Lowell. As the middle child, Randy was a gentle, loving young man with a
giving nature. He was enjoying the party life and was living on his own in
Denver when Ken and I were married. Ken’s
youngest son, Lowell enjoyed being the clown of the family. He worked nights at
a local nightclub and dreamed of becoming a top chef.

As parents we are not responsible for the life decisions our
adult children make. We can only celebrate
their successes and stand ready to help pick up the pieces when things go
wrong. Randy’s lifestyle led him to contract HIV/AIDS in 1987 shortly after Ken
and I moved to California to begin our new life together. We could only watch helplessly as his health
declined and his smile disappeared. His
death two years later at the age of 27 was extremely hard on Ken. I could not
begin to imagine the pain of losing a child. But just as he had handled the
death of his wife, he picked up the pieces of his life and moved forward. I’m not sure I could have done the same. From time to time, a memory or special day
will trigger a return of the grieving, but he doesn’t let it consume him.

Last year, after leading a very troubled life, Greg finally
found his peace by committing suicide. I feared that the pain of losing two children
would be impossible to bear, but once again, Ken grieved and moved on. His
greatest remorse was that his children had suffered in their final days on
earth and he had not been there to comfort them. His emotional strength in dealing
with this loss has consistently amazed me.

My grandmother lost a child at the young age of 5 months and
the loss affected her for her entire life. She became paranoid and bitter. She
mistrusted everyone and had difficulty expressing her emotions. To us she
seemed cold and unfeeling. She seldom laughed or caressed us and seemed overly
critical of everything.

I was curious to know whether these two very different
responses to the death of a child were
typical of the different grieving processes experienced by men and women.

Several research articles pointed to the fact
that mothers often have more difficulty overcoming the death of a child than
fathers do. This can be traced partly to
social norms that place the mother in the more nurturing role in the
family. She tends to take on the
responsibility for the care and protection of her young so when something goes
wrong, she takes it as a personal failure and the guilt can be unbearable. Because of the nursing experience, mothers
often bond more quickly to their infant child than fathers. Therefore, losing
an infant when it is most dependent on the nurturing care of the parent may be
particularly difficult for the mother. As today’s fathers take a more active parenting
role, this may be truer in my grandmothers’ case that it is today.

The research also indicates that it is not uncommon for women who
experience the death of a child to experience Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
similar to that experienced by combat veterans. They often suffer from psychological disorders like
paranoia and substance dependency which can last throughout their lives. Treatment
for PTSD has only recently come under scrutiny with the return of combat
veterans from Vietnam. In my grandmother’s time, there was no diagnosis or
treatment for the disorder. Like combat veterans,
grieving parents were simply told to get on with their lives and have more
children. What is misunderstood in this pronouncement
is that one can never replace a child no matter how many children come
afterward. There is always a void and an
empty place at the table. There is
always a life unfulfilled and the dreams of what might have been.

Pretending that the child never existed is not an option for
the grieving parent. There are still
memories to be shared and smiles to be remembered. Just because their lives
were cut short does not mean that they had never lived or that their lives did not
touch others in the short time they were with us. When asked how many children
he has, Ken always answers, “I had three sons.”

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About Me

Wanda Pyle grew up on a farm in the Flint Hills of Kansas and draws upon this background in much of her writing. She is currently living with her husband in Claremont, California. She enjoys reading, writing and spending time with her grandchildren. Her debut novel chronicles the lives of three generations of women through economic hardship, war, and eventually, self-reliance. She is currently at work on her second novel.